Caps vs. Canucks 10-13-2008 Post-Mortem

Darn you Alex Burrows... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• First things first, when the Caps set the old record for fewest shots on goal , which was 11 on November 3rd, 1995 against the Florida Panthers at the old Capital Centre, they managed to lose the game (typical for this franchise). Tonight the Caps set a new franchise record for fewest shots allowed and actually won pretty easily.
• Adding to the fun was the chasing of Roberto Luongo. Luongo had won his last ten starts against the Caps.
• Not that it will matter to his detractors, but we saw Jeff "Sergeant" Schultz throwing a few hits tonight in the defensive zone. We'd rather see that than Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green trying to throw hits.
• John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles gets his first healthy scratch of the season, the Caps get their first easy win of the season, and set a franchise record for fewest shots allowed in the process. Coincidence???
• We liked that not only did Alexander Semin come to play tonight but that the Caps didn't spend 35 minutes trying to force feed him a hat trick and took 10 shots on goal with the game well in hand in the third period.

THE BAD:

• The Sergei Fedorov experiment of the blueline wasn't a total disaster tonight but we're not thrilled with idea in the long term. While we like the idea of Erskine Bowles being relegated to the Press Box where he belongs, we do wish the Steve Eminger situation had worked out better or at least the Caps were willing to give one of the younger guys a look.
• Yeah, he only faced ten shots on goal all night, but Brent Johnson let the first one he faced go in and had some harrowing moments moving the puck.

THE UGLY:

• Roberto Luongo:

NHL.com

• We understand why, but counting Michael Nylander's Penalty Shot goal as a Power Play goal (because the Caps were on the Power Play at the time it was scored) is just downright cheap.
  

Lost in the shuffle is that the Caps have scored at least 4 goals in every game so far this season. The last time they did that was 1997-1998 when they started off 4-0 beating Toronto 4-1, Loserville...er...Buffalo 6-2, New Jersey 4-1, and the New York Islanders 6-3. 1988-1989 was the the only other times te Caps offense got off to a hot start like this. While we don't expect the Caps to continue to score this many goals, the fact that the defense could shut down an offense as bad as Vancouver's (those 11 goals in two games before tonight were against the same opponent) is a good sign. We only wish the Caps could have kept them from reaching double digits.

It has been... A TWO POINT NIGHT!!!